


We're The Lucky Ones, We're The Stars

by KuriKoer



Series: We're The Lucky Ones, We're The Stars [1]
Category: C6D - Fandom, Canadian 6 Degrees, Hard Core Logo (1996)
Genre: Buddies, Friendship, Hospital, Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Movie, Punk Rock, Recovery, Rehab, Slash, Suicidal Themes, Therapy, True Love, bad language, m/m - Freeform, rock n roll, romantic feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 08:05:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuriKoer/pseuds/KuriKoer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe missed. Part 1 of 2. Takes place after the movie, and alternates only on the What Happens Next credits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're The Lucky Ones, We're The Stars

The surgery took hours.

Billy only heard in the morning, and he still had hours to pace up and down the short corridor, to sit on plastic chairs until it hurt, to drink himself hyper on bad vending machine coffee.

They still didn't let him see Joe when he left the OR.

He came back the next day. Fuck the tour, fuck everything. Fuck music. In some weird part of him that he didn't want to acknowledge, he blamed the music for what happened to Joe.

"It was the drugs, it wasn't..."

He tried to explain. They didn't strap Joe to the bed only because he was so stoned - sedated, apparently, when it's legal to give 'em - he couldn't move his hands.

He came back and still had to wait for hours and then they let him in. Apparently Joe was awake. Kinda.

"Don't be alarmed," the nurse said. "There's still reconstructive surgery to be done. This is a healing face."

Didn't look so healing to Billy when he went in.

"Most of all," the nurse had said, "it's important not to let him feel rejected, like he lost hope."

So Billy swallowed his cringe and pasted on a smile that fooled no one, not even zonked-out, bandaged, barely mumbling Joe.

"Mummy-boy," Billy said and stretched his smile that one millimeter wider. He couldn't read the expression in Joe's one visible, swollen eye, but the indistinct sound may have been _cunt_. That was encouraging.

It wasn't the bandaged parts that bothered him, even. It was the stuff around it. Raw, and Billy always thought Joe had a raw quality but it was different to see the inside of Joe on the outside when it wasn't metaphorical. Raw all over. Billy swallowed and kept his smile on and felt the bruising on his own lips and in his own throat and he kept thinking, _I came through it easy_. Like they were both in an accident and he got lucky, not like...

"You asleep?"

No answer.

"I'll be back in a minute, gotta take a leak."

He slipped out of the room and went, head held high, into the bathroom. And threw up.

There wasn't much in his stomach; even the alcohol was all gone. Just the bad coffee and half a cup of juice.

 

Joe's mother and father were there the next day. His parents, fuck, Billy hadn't seen them since he was what, fourteen. He wasn't even sure they'd recognise. He stood on the far end of the hall and fidgeted and shuffled his foot, and when they noticed him, they sent him angry, accusing glances, sharp like the hisses he couldn't hear from that distance.

Huh. So they did recognise him. Cool.

 

He got a phone call from Bucky Haight.

"I heard."

"You gonna come over?"

"No."

"Ah."

"Joe's a shit," that hermit motherfucker aging punk told him. "He ruins everyone he comes in contact with. Everything he touches."

"You're being dramatic, Bucky. And way outta line."

The older man cut him roughly. "You don't even believe that. You know what he does. How he is."

"You were fine with him for years," Billy spat, finding comfort in the old offence is better than defense. "This, what, it's a new tune?"

Bucky must have heard the unshed tears he kept swallowing. "Now's not a good time for this conversation," he said softly. "But you know I'm right."

Billy was left with a dial tone and he cursed, banging the phone on the desk. _I never liked Bucky Haight_.

 

Four days later John told him. Over the phone, still stuttering, but doing a lot better now that he was on the pills again. Told him what Bruce had done.

Billy wanted to rip his fucking head off, but then he went back in the room and saw Joe's face against the pillow, parts white and parts red, and he just didn't want to think about anything, anything at all, ever.

 

Mary came in, with her little kid in tow. Now that he looked closely, he still couldn't tell whose eyes she had. Mary's eyes were red, puffy. She really cared.

"Yeah, he's, I dunno if they let anyone in right now, plus," he nodded towards the girl, eyes on the wall, "you sure you want, uh, her, you know. You don't want her to go in there."

Mary wept a little. "That bad?"

Billy swallowed. "Worse."

Mary hitched a breath and sobbed on his shoulder while the daughter, his daughter? Joe's daughter? Did it really matter? Girl wandered around the vending machines and played with some bands on her arm.

 

 

A week later and he's in rehearsal and he's playing some of the best he's ever done and he feels nothing, but it's great. Week after that and Jenifur's on stage and he's rocking the place, and that night there are two girls in his bed and he leaves when it's dark, even though it's his hotel room. Wanders the deserted streets until it's almost noon and when he comes back they're not there. Stole some of his underwear, too.

Four months and he's touring, and calling every weekend. Joe never answers and his parents hang up, and Mary doesn't have any news anymore because she had to go back home. Nurses won't give him any information and he can't blame them, but he swears anyway and they hang up too.

He goes back. Joe's in rehab. That's for the facial muscles, speech therapy, that kind. Actual rehab's gonna have to wait 'til he's off the prescribed morphine, and some more anti-depressants and anti-psychotics and stuff they pushed into him. John knows all the names and sounds like he's taking some kind of glee in telling Billy exactly what each does. It's like he's the normal one now.

Pipe's _gone_ , lives with his sister and doesn't wanna talk, doesn't wanna look. Billy can't blame him. Not really. This shit's just too fucking much. Just like Joe, too fucking much.

 

 

He comes back in and sits next to Joe, even holds his hand. Joe doesn't wake, and Billy dozes off in the chair next to him. Then something stirs in his hand and he startles awake.

Open eyes. A little cloudy. Billy leans in close, thinks maybe Joe can't see well, or isn't awake, or it's the drugs, or it's the...

Brain damage. Too early to tell everything, they said. Looks promising, they said, with a cheerful smile that Billy thought looked like some fucking banking commercial to someone you can't trust.

Anyway, he leans over, real close, closer, and Joe spits at him.

Doesn't really travel all the way, most of it falls back on Joe, but the idea is clear. Billy laughs hysterically and wipes Joe's face very gently with a tissue from the box near the bed that looks like that's what it's there for, and he says, breathless,

"God, Joseph, you stupid _fuck_..."

 

 

"He's very lucky," says the doctor.

"I don't feel lucky," Joe says, almost clearly. Billy almost cries when he realises he can make out the words.

"Now, we need to ask you some questions," the doctor says. "Do you remember anything?"

Joe looks like he's trying to raise an eyebrow. The sarcasm is clear, even if the muscles don't obey every muddled order they're getting. "My name, the president of the guys down south, that kind?"

"More like... do you remember what happened that night?", the doctor prods gently.

Billy swallows and goes to look out the window.

Joe shrugs. "Ya know," he says and smiles, "it's like I got a hole in my head."

 

His mother went in and somehow it deteriorated into a shouting match in ten minutes flat, even though Joe couldn't raise his voice and his mother wouldn't. They were both raised better than that. She went out of the room with tears in her eyes.

His father just waited in the corridor, leaning against the wall, staring at the ceiling. Billy stood on the other end of the same corridor and hated the fact he couldn't smoke, and tried to catch the old man's eye but it never worked. And then the two left, mother and father, and just before they turned the corner Joe's mother looked back at him, for one moment. He looked at her and looked away and when he looked back they weren't there anymore.

 

Mary came back. Alone, this time.

"I guess you want to know, uh..."

He nods. Then when he realises she'll need better than that, he licks his dry lips and swallows and says, "Yeah, I..."

"You and him," Mary says really fast, and nods at the door. "That's... something special."

He barks out a laugh. "Yeah, you can say that."

She looks at him again and he catches something in her eyes and has to look away. That was not what he thought about, hadn't in years. Not really. Fuck.

"About Billie," she says, and for a moment it's so much like _where's Billy_ , he can't help but look around. But she continues, "I'm pretty sure she's yours, yeah. I told Evan already... I mean, he knew all along."

"That's good," he mumbles, because what else can he say?

"We can check, if you want," she says, defensive, "I mean, have a test. I'm not asking for anything."

"No, I know, it's just," he mumbles, "I want to know." He looks at the doorway and from behind it there's a grunt of pain he can hear all the way. Nurses stretching Joe's legs. Nothing wrong with his legs, but all this time and not moving and not walking because his head needed to rest... So yeah. "I want to know," he repeats, more clearly.

Then he gets a call and he has to take it and when he comes back she's gone, but she left her number on a post-it on the door. Billy tears it off and stuffs it in his pocket and he thinks about that little girl who was smarter than Pipe. God, a kid, and the contract, and Joe in hospital and his own fucking nasty habits. He desperately wants to have a cigarette in his hand so he could throw it down and stomp it and swear never to touch another one, but he doesn't actually have one lit because it's a fucking hospital. _No dramatic gestures for you, Billy boy_. No, not like Joe.

"I was gonna tell you." Head in his hands on the chair next to the bed.

"You got some fucking ego." Joe still slurs, but he's perfectly clear. Speech therapy works wonders. Also, like the docs keep saying, _he was lucky_.

"I was gonna tell you after the gig, I was."

"Dun't care." Okay, some times he slurred more than others.

"Yeah, well I do." But he only says it after Joe's back to sleep and he's on the other side of the door.

 

A cousin of Joe's comes to visit and she's kinda fuzzy pink cardigan and probably Tori Amos on those headphones, but she's heard of Jenifur and her friend is a fan, and could he sign something? He stands there in the corridor and writes down his name and he just about freaks out. _Billy Hollywood_. Fucking Joe.

He's gotta fly back again the next day and they ask him, compassionately, if he wants to maybe...

"No," he blurts, and he hates himself and he knows it's right, and he hates even more admitting to anything Bucky Fucking Haight ever said, "it's okay. I got it covered. No worries."

They nod and he wonders for a minute if they think he's a dick, and then he doesn't care because it's gig after gig, night after night, and he's exhausted. And exhausted feels good. It's the kind of exhausted you get from playing your guitar until you sweat it all out, not the kind you get from creaking your neck sleeping in a freezing van and eating shit and sandwiches for breakfast every day.

But there's a break, two weeks until rehearsal for the next round, and he sleeps for two whole days and then he hops a plane and hey. Joe.

_Where you goin' with that gun in your hand_...

So, _now_ Joe's in care and he's in rehab and he's being watched and monitored and all the things you usually do with guys who tried to blow their own head off, and the thing is, he looks almost chipper.

Well, compared to how Billy remembers him being before this... thing. Compared to how Joe is in his head, which is angry, or disappointed, or violent, or angry.

Or drunk off his ass and fondling, and mumbling... and then angry again. Damnit.

"Good to see ya, buddy," he says softly, and Joe looks down at his own hand for a moment, and then he flips Billy the bird.

And Billy's so happy he could just smack him one on the lips. A kiss, not a punch, although he thinks Joe deserves that too and will get it some day, when ( _if_ ) he's better, when ( _if_ ) he's ever coming out of this hospital. But even a kiss is probably not the thing to do, so Billy just licks his chapped lips and he sees Joe's eyes sluggishly follow the movement. So he does it again, slower.

"Pricktease," Joe says slowly.

"Yeah, well," Billy says and winks and for a moment it's almost like old times. Really old times.

"Didn't shoot _that_ off," Joe slurs a little, and grins.

Billy swallows, pales, because that wasn't funny, that wasn't fun. It brought up all that stuff Billy can still see when he closes his eyes, the red and white face, one eye under bandages, Joe not talking.

But then Joe grabs his crotch and leers at him, and Billy almost laughs with the relief. Joe Dick, never Miss Manners to begin with. Just good old Joe. So he exhales and says, "Suck your own," and Joe says, "Would if I could."

And Billy says, "Remember when you tried, we were what, grade eight?"

And Joe says, "Yeah, nearly broke my back," and they both laugh now, openly, and when a little bit of drool escapes the corner of Joe's mouth, Billy reaches without thought and wipes it off.

 

They move him. Billy heard Joe's being moved out and started thinking, _where's he going_? His parents? That would be torture. No girlfriend, no anything. He called, almost hysterical, from a club, guitar already in hand, five minutes to stage. They explained to him that Joe's not thrown out, he's being moved to another facility because he's that much better. And he can walk.

Slowly, Billy finds out later, and with crutches, and a lot of leaning on walls, and _don't overdo it, don't stress yourself_. But Joe can make it from his bed to the vending machine, where he can sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair and pant while Billy gets him a cup of orange juice from the nurses' station, because nothing in that vending machine is good enough to be tasted by a recuperating patient.

"Or a wild pig," Billy adds.

"So, you know that 'cause you tried?", Joe mumbles, and grins up at Billy and Billy hates himself because this, this looks just like the old Joe. And that scares him.

He knows logically that nothing will be the same as it was before for Joe, _nothing_ , not ever, but that doesn't stop the terrified little voice in him that says _I can't go back there, I can't do this again, I can't have it be like it was before_.

And that's just so fucked up his hand shakes and some juice splashes on his wrist.

"Hey, I'm the brain damaged one," Joe says, and Billy blurts automatically, "Always were."

 

He goes away for two months and when he comes back Joe's pale, focused. Eyes piercing, not clouded. Like they were before, but not angry. Something else.

"You look good."

"You look like shit," Joe retorts, as per usual. And then he smiles. "Looks good on you."

Billy has no idea what to say to that.

Joe walks with him in the little garden until they reach a bench in the sun and he sits down. They look at each other.

The scars on the side of Joe's face are healing. They're definitely healing.

Billy thought they never would.

"How's the music?", Joe asks, and Billy waits for bitterness or for jealousy, but there's nothing. Joe lets his head fall back a little, and the sun plays little hide and seek games between the leaves. It's fucking _pastoral_.

"It's good," he says. "It's really good."

"That's good," Joe says, a little dreamy.

 

He's actually on another mini-tour when an envelope arrives in the mail, and in it some mutterings about DNA that he doesn't understand, and a result. Yeah, Billie's his. There wasn't any doubt.

"I got a kid," he says to the guys from Jenifur and they all pat him on the back and say congratulations, and he's a kind of happy, breathless sweaty happy, like he really did _just_ have a kid, like he just got the call from some panting wife and a doctor who heard the first newborn cry.

He _desperately_ wants to tell Joe and he knows it's dangerous, can recognise it in himself, knows he's starting to think they might have something, they might still have something between them and that's just _wrong_.

He goes on stage and rocks, full of jittery, buzzing energy, and when he goes off it's after three and he doesn't care. He picks up the phone.

"What the fuck, who the hell is..."

"Joe, Joe."

"Billy?"

"Joe, Mary's kid. Billie. Billie, she's my kid."

"Billie is Billy's..."

Billy wonders for a moment if it's brain damage or just three in the morning. Or just Joe not giving a fuck about Mary's kid and not remembering even the slightest thing about that.

"Mary's little blond kid she brought in? That she named after you?"

"Named after the dad," Billy says and it's the same rush like he's a new father and should be handing out cigars.

And just like that, Joe gets it. "You owe me a cigar, douchebag."

"I'm thinking of quitting smoking," Billy says and expects a roar of laughter but all he gets is a few seconds silence and then, "Yeah," Joe says, "that's probably smart."

Jesus Christ humping a drum stick, what was that. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Joe says, and then yawns in his ear. "Wanna tell me more about it like, ten? Eleven?"

"What, you get up before noon?", Billy jokes, because he's still hyper and there's no one else he wants to talk to. Jenifur people are milling all around him.

"Fuck off," Joe says with a grin and another yawn and then he hangs up. Billy stands there with the phone in his hand and a smile on his face.

 

Joe can read.

"That new?"

"Har-dee-fucking-har-har," Joe says without rancor. Billy grins, sitting next to him, patting his knee. Same garden, a different corner of it, more shaded, and with a little table that just stands there, covered in plastic. There's a few books on it. They kinda have a big font, but they're real books, not kids' stuff. Billy can tell, he has three shelves of kids' and young adults' books at his place now. Not that he considers li'l Billie to be a young adult - she hates when he calls her that, but it's still confusing - just that she reads up to that level. But Joe's hospital books are real grownup books, just done in a way that's a little easier to read.

"You seen any of the other guys?", Billy asks, feeling like an ass.

"Pipe was here one time. Felt like I had a lot more in common with him now," Joe says and roars with laughter, and Billy laughs with him, because that's still fucked up and funny and so not true. It's a little strange to see a few tears leaking out of his right eye. "And John was here more than that... dunno how much, four, five, six times? It's..." He hesitates. "It's okay. You know."

"Yeah," Billy says and nods, because he does.

"My parents've been here a couple of times," Joe says, and Billy isn't sure if the way his head twitched sideways is from the injury or just from the not wanting to talk about his parents.

He stays quiet.

"Was okay," Joe says easily, and shrugs. "I threw a vase at my dad. My mom brought me a fucking box of cookies and didn't say anything for a whole hour."

"Fun," Billy says.

"Yeah," Joe agrees. They share a chuckle.

 

"I was thinking of boning that nurse," Joe says, gesturing with his head across the yard. 

Billy glances up, sees a white starched skirt and what can only be described as an ample bosom. He laughs.

Joe laughs with him. Then he says, "Hey, I don't move as fast as I used to. You want me to nail you, you gotta stay put."

Billy looks down on his hands. Black nail polish and he's pushing forty, what's up with that stupid fucking...

Then he looks up at Joe.

"What, we gonna not talk about it 'til the day we die?", Joe asks. "I already tried that. Not fun."

Billy says nothing.

"Not buddies," Joe adds.

Billy says nothing.

"You know what's buddies?", Joe asks.

"Fucking someone when you're fucking them over, just to make it stick?", Billy asks and regrets it in a second.

Joe is silent for a moment, and that too is new. And then he says, "Being, you know. In some kind of love, maybe."

Billy just _looks_ at him.

"Yeah, I know," Joe says, "but it's gonna be different this time."

"What, 'cause you..." Billy starts and he stops, bites it off before he says something they both regret, but Joe, Joe, he's Joe. He's pushing. He's not letting it go.

"Yeah, 'cause I rearranged my brains, finally," he says, and that's so close to what Billy was gonna say but couldn't, it's not even funny. He just stares.

Joe makes a move as if to put a hand on his leg, but he doesn't. Maybe he did learn some things, maybe he did get changed.

"Saw a show of you with Jenifur," Joe says. "Someone sent me a bootleg. You were good."

"Thanks," Billy says, because that's the automatic reaction and he's way too confused.

"Looked good on stage. Looked happy, played happy. You know."

"It's just a gig," Billy blurts and he's not sure if he knows what he's saying. He kinda hates this new Joe. But then he looks sideways at the still-red skin, not raw-red but scarred-red, and pink on the edges and white some places and he thinks, yeah, maybe. Not hate. Maybe something else.

"Yeah, but you're good at it," Joe says easily. "No pressure."

"No _pressure_?!", Billy sputters and starts explaining about the gruelling schedule and the hard work and the... And then he stops. "Not what you meant, is it," he says flatly.

"Yeah, not what I meant," Joe agrees. "But you did look good. Sound good, too. You happy?"

"I got a good job and a kid," Billy says eventually.

"Yeah," Joe says and breathes easily and drops his head back into the position he's been doing all summer, letting the sun and the breeze sort of fall down on his face at a right angle.

And Billy leans in and moves up and turns sideways and kisses him on the mouth.

Closed. No tongue. Just mouth on mouth, like they did in gigs in front of a dozen or more people, like it didn't mean a thing. Then he sits back down.

And glances sideways to see Joe smiling a little.

"Buddies," he says defensively.

"Yeah, you little fuck," Joe agrees, and then finally that hand lands on his lap. "Buddies."


End file.
